MY radio

I can't believe I didn't know about this. Now that I do, I may not come up for air for awhile. The folks at the Music Genome Project have developed Pandora, software that "learns" what music you like and streams it to your desktop. You enter a song or an artist and Pandora creates a "radio station" that plays music it thinks you will like. Here's the blurb about how it's done:

For almost six years now, we have been hard at work on the Music Genome Project. It's the most comprehensive analysis of music ever undertaken. Together our team of thirty musician-analysts have been listening to music, one song at a time, studying and collecting literally hundreds of musical details on every song. It takes 20-30 minutes per song to capture all of the little details that give each recording its magical sound - melody, harmony, instrumentation, rhythm, vocals, lyrics ... and more - close to 400 attributes! We continue this work every day to keep up with the incredible flow of great new music coming from studios, stadiums and garages around the country.

The "learning" part comes in as the user gives song feedback. The songs that play from that point on will change to reflect those preferences. Now THAT'S cataloging.